At the end of March, my mobile contract ended with AT&T. Before that, I knew I was going to be happy in switching to another carrier since the service is bad at my place. My sister mentioned that she got Sprint and her plan is cheap.
It’s the SERO plan. It comes with unlimited text and unlimited data for $30.
I looked at the phones they had and I wanted to get the Blackberry 8130. But the purchase needs to have the Blackberry Data Service (which is an extra $39.99). But searching online, I found out that you don’t need the data service if you have a Blackberry phone. It’s only useful if you need push email and other blackberry service.
Some say you can’t get the Blackberry without the Blackberry data service. Some say you need to be persistent and just keep asking for the original plan without the Blackberry data service. Basically I did the latter and now I have a $30/month plan with unlimited text and unlimited data. I can surf the net with Opera Mini.
Since all my computers are on Linux/Ubuntu, I had to find a way to install the desktop software for the Blackberry. I have VMware with WinXP, so I installed it. After a couple days of figuring out why it wouldn’t work, I found out that with the CD install (Desktop Application), you need to have the Device software too (which is not on the CD). I searched the net and found the link to getting the Blackberry 8130 device setup (you can get that directly from the Blackberry website).
But getting the software on windows to connect to the device worked like once or twice. Then I figured that the layer between (which would be the Linux/Ubuntu) needed extra support. So I searched again, and found out that there’s Barry, a Linux support util and library to communicate with the Blackberry.
So finally… I have a working situation where I can connect the Blackberry to my PC and install applications, backup data and everything else. It is done by installing Barry on Linux, running WinXP on VMware, and finally install the Desktop Application with the Device setup.